Aizo
by Tsurai Shi
Summary: DouWata Mostly unrelated drabbles throughout the series. They may come together eventually. Ch.1: 'There was an old Japanese myth about a red thread, a soulmate thread if you will.'


Ever since Watanuki Kimihiro could remember, he'd been able to see things no one else could. The Sight came to him as easily as breathing. He could see auras. He was a magnet for ghosts and all sorts of malevolent spirits. He could also see the ties that bound people, emotionally and physically.

His first, and only, memory of his parents was incredibly hazy. His mother's face was the only thing that stood clear when she dropped her cooking knife turned to him, shocked at his question. She calmly asked him to repeat it again, and he did. She knelt down in front of him, her water-painted eyes coming level with his equally stunning blue ones. She held out her hands--he thought he could remember them trembling-- and asked him which finger he meant. He pointed at the one he'd asked about, then at his own left pinkie finger, explaining all the while in a small voice.

He didn't understand why his mother started crying then, or why his father looked ready to break down in front of them both. At his age he'd never really questioned the ofuda that plastered the walls both in and outside their house. Watanuki had never really wondered why he never was allowed off their grounds. He never knew anything different.

He recalled the piercing wail that his mother had let out, turning to his father and burying herself in his arms.

"I knew it! The minute I saw his eyes open, they were the same blue, and I knew!" she sobbed. Father stroked her hair reassuringly, not looking at little Watanuki with his haunted eyes. The boy had only felt confusion then, and hurt for his mother reacting so. Watanuki had been sent to his room, where he could not hear their soft, desperate whispers or see the red thread that hung now limply between them.

Two days later they were dead.

He'd been no more than five.

It was only at this time that Watanuki understood. There was an old Japanese myth about a red thread, a soul-mate thread if you will. Two mates that are destined to be have an invisible red string tied between their pinkie fingers. No matter how far the distance, the thread will never break. Only those with any spiritual power would ever be able to see it.

He knew now that his mother had been terrified when he'd been born about passing down her curse, though her azure eyes and enchanted blood. She was afraid that one day they would be gone and he wouldn't have someone like his Archer father to protect him from the appalling ghouls that hid in the shadow world.

¤

Watanuki had three definitive bonds that stretched from his soul. They were ties that connected him to others that influenced his life, as he did theirs. The first was connected to his head. It shone a bright gold if he concentrated, which he didn't like to do often because it gave him a headache.

It was clearly hid bond to Yuuko, the debt he was paying to be rid of his curse, and therefore his sight.

The second was grey, connected directly to his heart. The bearer was not anywhere near as malevolent as the bond was. On the contrary, she was bright smiles and laughs, albeit a slightly empty head.

Yuuko had been right though. Himawari was not his lucky charm, quite the opposite in fact, his tie told him.

But her tinkling laughter was the only way he could distract himself from his third link, the knotted red thread that wound around and away from his pinkie. He'd been able to see it when he was a child, stretching on far away from their home. The day his parents died it had disappeared, and he thought the little thread gone forever.

Years later it had suddenly appeared, almost right before the time Watanuki had entered Yuuko's service. He'd tried desperately to be rid of it; cut it, tear it, rip it, snap it, nothing could break it.

He hated the bearer so badly, because he himself had no choice or say in this.

The one who could push his buttons without even trying and send him into a frenzy that he couldn't calm himself out of. The one who'd spilled blood for him, without a plea or thanks from Watanuki. The one who'd acted as a human shield and weapon countless times. The one who'd sacrificed his eye to a spider for him, before Watanuki could give it back.

The one who he loved.

Watanuki stared at his finger, watching as the thread that stretched through the far wall twitched with unseen movements. In his shrine, Shizuka Doumeki was most likely making a pot of tea, completely unaware of the single thread that connected them for life.

Yet he hated him, loved him, all at once.

This feeling was Aizo.

¤

Aizo- a simultaneous feeling of love and hate

Please review, I love constructive criticism!


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